Tips For Starting A Small Business
Reason
You must start a business for the right reason or reason. Do not start a business just for the sake of feeding into your ego or because you think that the business will make you lots of money.
You must follow your passion and do something that you really love. If passion is the main driving force for your business, you will enjoy it and you will be more productive and creative.
Business Plan
A business plan will help you put your business idea through further scrutiny. A business plan is a guide that outlines the goals for your business and how you intend to reach them.
It must not be based on emotions and euphoria. A good plan is only possible after carrying out thorough research about the industry, market and competitors. It helps you to put your business idea under scrutiny in a realistic way. It helps you to draw clear lines between fantasy and reality.
The plan must be kept alive. It is not something that you just write and put in the drawer. It must have milestones and metrics against which you measure yourself and take corrective action as go along.
In other words, a business plan will help you to maintain strategy focus.
First Accumulate Enough Cash For Personal Expenses
It may take up to six months or more before you begin to realise profits from your new business. It is critical that you have another source of cash during that period for personal expenses otherwise you will struggle. Where possible, the best scenario would be for you start your business while you still have job and then quit the job when the business has gathered some momentum.
Unique Strengths
You must ask yourself this- ‘’What am I going to do better than my competitors?’’
You really must have a telling competitive edge otherwise the competition will drown you.
Knowing what sets you apart is a really great way to start to start you marketing campaign. Remember that the competitors have been in the game longer than you and they possess a wealth of information.
You must carry out adequate research so that you can establish whether they are gaps in the market which you can exploit. For example, are going to succeed because you have
a wider range of products
lower price
faster delivery time
better style
better quality
Money
Money is important for your business and you need to keep tabs on your finances. You must educate yourself and gain a basic ability to read and interpret financial statements. For a start, just gain some appreciation of a balance sheet, profit and loss statements and cash flow statement. The biggest mistake that people that make is to be intimidated by these terms. Just take a few moments to understate their purposes and will be amazed at how you will quickly grasp the ideas.
After all, if you intend to be in business for a long time, for how long are going to rely on other people to interpret financial statements for you?
Also please keep your personal finances completely separate from business finances.
Structure
You must think about the structure that your business will take. Will it be a sole trader, a partnership or company? They all have their pros and cons and so you must consider all of them and decide which one will really suit the type of business you want to run. When in any doubt seek guidance from experts like accountants and lawyers. You can never be an expert in everything.
Rules and Laws
Make sure that you are fully aware of the laws and regulations which govern the industry that you operate in. Without this knowledge you may find yourself facing heavy fines or being at the wrong end of a costly lawsuit. Remember the ever true saying ‘’Ignorance is no defence.’’ Further to this if you decide to form a company you must be well versed with laws regarding taxation, employment and corporate entities.
Professionalism
The business must show a professional outlook. Create a business website and custom business email addresses.
Treat customers in a professional manner and if you can afford it have your frontline staff trained in customer care.
Acknowledge customer complaints and reply the customers as quickly as possible.
You need to be professional to both your customers and suppliers.
Get A Good Team
Only employ people who bring real value to the business and who share your vision about where you want to take the business. They must buy into the vision otherwise they will become stumbling blocks.
You really need to be dynamic with staff management and strike a good balance. You must be firm about what you want from them and at the same make the workplace enjoyable. If you are always wearing the face of a hard task master some of your employees will leave. A high staff turnover is a great source of instability for any business.
If you are able to take a one week vacation and come back and find everything in place, then you would have built a great team.
Educate And Train Yourself Always
If you are in business, the hunger to learn must always be alive. To sustain your gains and success, you have to keep learning. You cannot survive in business if you do not continue to increase your knowledge and broaden your skills set. Remember, your competitors are doing the same and so if are passive about this, your business will remain behind.
Also there will setbacks and mistakes and you must regard these as some of the important building blocks of the learning process.
Get Organised
Business affairs can never be run in a haphazard manner. High levels of organization are required. Where possible you must acquire some of the administrative software that is available on the market. Besides helping you to retain information they also automate some of the tasks that could take you ages to complete manually. This will give you more time to focus on the mission critical aspects of the business.
Maintain a well-defined and well labelled filing system whether it is a physical or computerised. Every item or subject must a have a home and no ‘’visitors’’ must be allowed.
The records of your business are very critical and if you can afford a cloud storage service you should take that route. The other alternative is to use google drive.
Take Time Off
A business requires a lot of sacrifices from the owner. There may be times when a seven day week becomes necessary but this cannot be done in perpetuity. It is essential to take time off and spend time with friends and family. This is the only way to rejuvenate your energy and creative juices.
